City officials will host a “Solarbration” ceremony at 10:30 a.m. Thursday to officially cut the ribbon on the new rooftop solar system on the Robert Crown Community Center, 1801 Main St., a project years in the making that aims to reduce the building’s energy emissions by producing energy on-site.

The new system covers the Crown center’s rooftop in photovoltaic solar panels, which are owned and operated by Chicago-based contractor Verde Solutions. The city will purchase the generated electricity from Verde under a “power purchase agreement” for the next 20 years, with options to extend the deal or buy the system from Verde outright.

Thursday’s event will mark the end of a long process to put solar panels on top of the center. The earliest origin point is the 2018 Climate Action and Resilience Plan, which calls for all city operations to reach carbon neutrality by 2035. To this end, city officials and outside partners completed a “Zero Emissions Strategy” in August 2021, which the City Council adopted in March 2022.